UT 2004 problem

Hi, I recently installed UT2004 and updated with the latest patch. However, there is a problem . Whenever I want to play a team deathmatch or CTF, it takes very long (more than 1.5 minutes) before it actually starts. This is wierd because when I play deathmatch it loads very fast (less than 30 seconds). I have a Geforce6600 (128mb) with 1 gb of ram. I have tried various settings but the loading times did not change... Does anyone here knows what will be causing those long loading times? Thx.

 

thats strange, do you modify the UT2004.ini to increase/decrease the the Pre-cache, it helps the performance of the game.

[Engine.GameEngine]
CacheSizeMegs=128

As for load times, the larger the map and/or the more people there are, the longer it takes.

I would recommend to run UT2004 Safe Mode, and make all settings back to default. Then change them to your preferred setting.

 

Thx for the reply. I found the UT2004.ini file and found that my lines are:

[Engine.GameEngine]
CacheSizeMegs=32

Should I change the "CacheSizeMegs" to 128? Is the number bigger the better?

Also, I just notice one thing. Just now when I try another team deathmatch, it get stuck on the loading screen for 1.5 minutes and then only it started to load. So I am assuming the actual load times are not long, but the time before it actually starts to load is long for some reason....

 

the bigger the number, the better the in-game performs (smoothly since the before any match starts, the map and textures get pre-cached into the memory)

so the number is the amount of memory you want to allow to be used for pre-caching.

32mb is really low in today's standards. make it at least 128mb
_________________

for the other UT2004 tweaks to fix/improve the load times, check this out:
http://www.tweakguides.com/UT2004_1.html

they have the best in-depth guides to get the best out of current and newer games.

 

Ok thx for the information. I think I know what the problem is now. I've tried safe mode and it works fine and all maps loads instantly. I notice the safe mode setting for the "3d renderer" is set to "software" instead of "Direct X". So I changed it to "Direct X" and then the problem came back. (ie. it takes really long for it to start loading the map). From my understanding UT2004 uses Direct X 9.0b, but I have Direct X 9.0c installed on my laptop. So that may be the problem. Does anyone know where can I download Direct X 9.0b and install it on my system? Thx again.

 

No, that's not the problem. Software rendered uses the power of your machine to run the game, not the graphics card, direct x uses, obviously, your card to render the game. Software mode looks quite poor, obviously.

 

Ok... You're right. Software mode does looks very bad indeed. But what do you think will be the problem then? I really have no idea... It shouldn't be my graphics card since I have updated drivers and it run every other game well.

 

if you saw an issue with DirectX (D3D), then try changing the INI to use OpenGL. It looks the same and performance a bit better.

 

May I ask how do I change the INI to use OpenGL? Thx.

 

it should be near the top of the UT2004.ini

[Engine.Engine]
RenderDevice=OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice

thats what it should be changed to

the www.tweakguide.com link that i gave you should have gone through this under Adv Tweaking

 

Ok thx. I just tried using that but it's still the same and the problem is still there. It also performs slightly worse in the game too...

 

hmm....

maybe you might have to reinstall, there is some setting causing this.

if the reinstall does not help, then its probably some software on your system causing this... such as:
- Anti-Virus (killer of resources and scans everything when executed.. like games)
- System Restore (another resource killer, rarely ever used)

All you need in the background is a Good firewall (like ZoneAlarm), and maybe hardware monitors for checking batterylife, CPU temps, GPU temps, etc.

The rest can be disabled.

 

hmm... Thx for the suggestions. I'm thinking maybe it's my graphics driver now. Since I have the most updated one (93.71) installed at the moment, maybe the game requires a older driver? I have tried reinstalled 4 times already and that did not help... I know that sounds dangerous but I don't use any antivirus on my system (not even windows firewall)... For system restore I didn't even touch it so it shouldn't be a problem. Maybe I shall try other older versions of the graphics driver now to see if there is any improvement...

 

Ok guys, I got it working fine now... I turned off all the extra settings that I don't need in the "Audio" and the "Game" settings page, such as "preload player skins" & some other audio settings. They are actually turned on by default. Anyway, thank you for your help, Gophn and HavoK...

 

It takes a while to load on my computer too but not usually quite as long as yours. Hard drive spin affects load times greatly. So, the higher textures or sound settings it means the bigger the file is, which takes longer to load. Larger levels also are bigger file sizes, or more players, etc.

 

lol... Mine is working properly now and I think the average loading time for each match is around 20 seconds. So I guess I'm happy for now until UT3 comes out